And again, I have no ability to do any of this, and am not willing to become the goddess of evil, even if it's for a good cause.
Besides, the evil ones would never have me. They would see through me right away.

Maybe the sellout party could do better?
Nah, I think sponsors would want you to win...

Even if these parties didn't win any votes, by yelling loudly the worst policies and looking ridiculous, perhaps the conservatives would moderate, saying "well, we shouldn't be as bad as those assholes...
On the other hand, maybe we'd just be giving them ideas, spitballing horrible things for them.

I also thought about starting multiple parties, including a horrible far-right party to push the republicans back to the center, & a pro-business party to siphon off their funding.
Basically, try to divide and conquer evil by appealing to it's worst components, to reduce the evil of the current GOP.

There is the idea that some voters couldn't bring themselves to vote for a democrat, but have misgivings about republican party stances, so giving them a viable third option would be useful.
But "viable" is awfully hard to achieve.

Everybody knows voting third parties is throwing away the vote.

But I abandoned this idea, not just because I have no ability to organize a political party, but also for fear that it would just draw from the democrats, split the vote, and hand victory to conservatives, opposite of what I'd want.
In order to be effective, it has to draw conservative voters too.

I once had the idea of starting a centrist party, because if it got any traction, it would pretty much be the deciding vote on every issue, given the nearly even split between democrats and republicans at all times.
By virtue of being centrist, it would hopefully push the democrats back to the left.

bioengineer.org/hormone-ther...

Could we have a link to the paper that doesn't go through the Nazi site?

The feeling that I might have fucked up my friendship with my best friend by reading too much into their proposal and getting too excited and being open about that is starting to make me very sad.

I really thought I had something that I'd long since given up on. This pain is why I gave up before.

It was quite intoxicating, when I first went into the world as a woman; People smiled at me. Men held doors for me. People were nice!
And so I was happier and nicer in return!
Which got even better results!
So I did what worked!

Not a different person, just evolved filters of behavior and thinking.

We're all many different people, depending on circumstances. You filter your behavior differently for your mother, your partner, your boss.
There is a feedback loop between your presentation & how people react to you, & then how you react to that.

I'm still me, it's just a different set of filters.

You should absolutely pay for good journalism.

The NYT is barely journalism at all -- it's largely right-wing billionaire propaganda and slop.

If you need to hate-read something, use Remove Paywall.

Cancel your subscription to the NYT and spend that money on actual journalism.

Confessions and further conversation reveal that it was, as suspected, not actually the romantic overture I was hoping for.
When the answer to "yes, I accept, I will marry you" is not immediate joy and celebration, then the proposal is probably DOA.
Some small hope, she didn't actually say no...

It's Pill 'o Clock!
(one hour delayed + snoozed once)

The half hour snooze basically gives me 2 hours to finally get around to it.
Every time it goes off, I say "It's pill 'o clock! Time to take my pills so I don't turn into a warewolf."
And so now when it goes off, everybody around me is like "hey Tina, your phone is going off! It's Pill 'o clock!"

I set an alarm with 30 minute snooze that goes off twice daily at a time when I should be awake.
I don't shut off the alarm until the pills are in my mouth.
I will forget to take them while holding them in my hand, otherwise.
I have a pill container for the week so that I can tell if I forgot.

We'll see... It's off to a promising start!
A lot of anime lately have started very strong & finished far less so, but still very good.
While I know there are occasionally actually trans characters in anime, most of the time they play it off as something else, & that's so frustrating!
Speak to us!

Of course, like most anime, they can't just let somebody be trans without some reason.
But the story is still progressing, I have hope!
I hope Santa Sanda brings me a genuine trans character for a change!
Even if not, I think the story so far still speaks to us and our issues, and I'm glad for that!

I think that (so far), Shiori Fuyumura's struggle is the classic trans doubt that we all struggle with early on.
In anime tradition, they give her an excuse; her body is oddly masculine for a gir, but the struggle is real!
We've all stood in front of that mirror, questioning why we have THIS body.